Summer School

I have spent a lovely 4 days at Littleheath Barn taking part in Summer School.

During the first two days we printed our fabrics.  The theme overall was the colour of the seasons.  I chose Autumn, not because I want to do work about a season, but because I'm hoping to do some work on my Australian Connections.

These are my fabrics washed and ironed.  The brown pieces, bottom left, are actually more purple than brown.  Despite all my years of breakdown printing, my screens didn't breakdown and the fabrics look more stencilled - not a look I particularly like.

 

However I carried on and started making a book.  I tried out some Cotton Woven Fusible  Interfacing as the base layer.  It's okay but not really suitable if the fabrics are also lightweight eg. muslin, cotton lawn, organdie.

 

Here are some of the pages for the book. 

 

 

I also started making another book in a different colourway.

I didn't like the big orange bit in the top one and eventually covered it up.  I experimented with transferring images to the pages using a paper lamination technique with bondaweb.  The original pictures aren't very good so I'm pleased that it worked at all.

At the end of the 4th day we had a Show and Tell.

You can see how I covered up the bright orange next to the ship!

I've got lots of fabric left so who knows what will become of it!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice 

A finished series

Over the past year I have made a series of work about the negative labels we put on ourselves and that society puts on us.  I also looked at the positive labels and how we change our view of ourselves.

I started with a piece called I'm Fine -NOT!  This started with a sketch a friend had made of me during lockdown.  I had it made into a Thermofax screen and printed it onto the fabric.  I painted the grey dye over the fabric leaving the white masks.  I embroidered the words that you might want to say when someone asks you how you are and you answer 'I'm fine' when you really are not fine.

Three months later I did a workshop with Leah Higgins and dyed and printed the fabric with the theme of labels in mind.  The workshop was about building layers of print so these fabrics were busier then the fabrics I had been printing previously.

I didn't necessarily make all the next pieces in the order they make sense but here I'm going to show you them in the order they will be exhibited.

Piece 2 is called Negativity Chained.  There's a possibility this title may change!  

Following on from this is Cancelled.  On this piece I stamped the words and machine stitched a line through them to cross them out.  I embroidered the opposite word over the top to cancel out the negative with the positive.

Piece 4 is a transition piece between the negative and positive thinking and feeling.  It is a fabric hanging attached to a canvas.  It is the smallest of the pieces but shown large here.  The gold scar uses the repair idea of Kintsugi.

The next piece represents how we change our thinking from the negative to the positive. It's currently called Restored.

The final piece takes the original I'm fine - NOT! and becomes Confidence.  I put the original drawing into ChatGPT and asked it to remove the mask and give the drawing a nose, mouth and chin.  Then I asked ChatGPT to give the drawing a smiling mouth and then asked it to remove the shadows.  I had each of the three images made into a screen.  These were printed onto the undyed calico with yellow ochre fabric paint.  The words below the faces are positive words that give you confidence.

These 6 textile hangings will hopefully be hung in order at Forge Mill Needle Museum in 2027 when Becca and I have an exhibition entitled Expressions Too.

Thank you for joining me today
Bernice 

Bricks and Water

Next let's look at the pieces I've made for the Stitch in the Middle exhibition in Ledbury in October.  The title of the exhibition is Bricks and Water, with the emphasis being on industrial.  The exhibition will also be at Forge Mill in 2027.

If you're a regular here you know that I am a big fan of the canals built across the West Midlands and the redbrick industrial buildings.

I went on a workshop at Littleheath Barn called Abstract Landscape.  I took with me left over fabric from my previous canal pieces and some odds and ends from my stash.  I wanted my landscape to reflect the canals.  It's called Along Industrial Canals.

It has wavy horizontal machine stitched lines across it and some hand stitching which yo uhave to get quite close up to see.

I made a hanging book for the second piece based on photos I had taken at Forge Mill when I was on a course there.  I transferred my photos onto the fabric with bondaweb.

And lastly I'm sending the piece 1771 which I blogged about last August. This is another piece you have to get quite close to in order to see the hand stitched outlines of cogs.

Thanks for being here today
Bernice

Fragments

Today I'd like to show you the pieces I have made for the Midlands Textile Forum exhibition in September.  You will have two opportunities to see the exhibition.

It is on at The Artery in Worcester from 8th - 12th September.  It is then moving to Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery from 26th September to 7th November.

The theme for this exhibition is Fragments.

This piece was supposed to be stretched around the canvas but ended up as a hanging attached to the canvas instead.  It's made with fragments of fabric leftover from previous projects. 

 

The next piece you have seen before.  You can read the story here: Echoes of Memory.

And my final fragments piece is called My Imperfect Messy Life and is really difficult to photograph. It is also made with leftover bits of fabric from other projects.  I used Solufleece - a water soluble fabric - to attach all the pieces and then machined over the whole thing to attach the pieces together.

This was it hanging on the line to dry after washing out the Solufleece.

 And this is it finished with something behind it!

 I do hope you get an opportunity to see the exhibition.

Thanks for being here today
Bernice 

 

1st August

I'm back!

After a longer hiatus than I had planned.  I have missed sharing my textile work on here.  I have shared photos on Instagram but it's not the same.

As I mentioned in my last post, way back in the mists of time, my focus this year has been to make work for two exhibitions whilst I'm away in Australia. I've also needed to schedule blog posts for the church website through September and October.  I've also been making pieces for the exhibition Becca and I have at Forge Mill in 2027.

And of course, finishing my entry into the 3D category at Festival of Quilts.  

I ended up making 11 little fabric books to fit the shelf.  Five of the books have mini collages in them, using fabrics of a similar colour to the cover of the book.  And four have variations of a particular stitch - chain, feather and fly, herringbone, and buttonhole stitch.  One has random other stitches and the last one has 7 synonyms for captivity and 7 synonyms for freedom.

 I tried to make the covers relevant to the contents.

 And here it is on display at the Festival of Quilts:

The judging was on Wednesday and I wasn't awarded one of the prizes.  However yesterday someone congratulated me on being shortlisted.  So I had to go back and take a look.  And found the sticker I had overlooked before.

 As you might imagine, I'm rather chuffed.

Thanks for being here today,
Bernice